Two experiments were conducted to determine the additivity of apparent or true digestibility of phosphorus (P) in soybean meal (SBM), peas, faba beans, corn, oats, broken rice meal, rough rice meal, buckwheat, and sorghum for growing pigs. Chromic oxide (0.3%) was used as a digestion marker in both experiments. Each experiment lasted for 12 d, which consisted of a 7-d dietary adaptation period followed by a 5-d fecal collection period. Experiment 1 involved 6 diets: the SBM-based control diet; 4 diets with corn, oats, rough rice meal and broken rice meal substituted for SBM; and an additional diet with a representative mixture of the 5 ingredients. In Experiment 2, 6 diets were prepared similarly, except that the tested ingredients besides SBM were faba beans, peas, buckwheat, and sorghum. In each experiment, six barrows with an initial average individual BW of 20.5 kg were fed one of the six diets according to a Latin square design. The apparent and true P digestibility values for the nine tested ingredients were determined by the substitution method. There were no differences (p>0.05) between the determined and the predicted true P digestibility values for the mixture of ingredients in Experiments 1 and 2. However, the determined and the predicted apparent P digestibility values for the mixture of ingredients differed (p = 0.059) in Experiment 1, but not in Experiment 2. These results indicate that true P digestibility values are additive in ingredients containing low levels of phytate phosphorus and anti-nutritional factors, whereas the apparent P digestibility values are not always additive in single feed ingredients for growing pigs.

Ravindran, V. 1994. Total and phytate phosphorus contents of various foods and feedstuffs of plant origin. J. Food Chem. 50:133-136.

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Rodehutscord, M., M. Faust and H. Lorenz. 1996. Digestibility of phosphorus contained in soybean meal, barley and different varieties of wheat, without and with supplemental phytase fed to pigs and additivity of digestibility in a wheat-soybean-meal diet. J. Anim. Physiol. Anim. Nutr. 75:40-48.